Why a Research Paper is Important

As a student you might think why a research paper is important? there are many reasons a research paper is important to you. The skills that you learn from writing a research paper cannot be learned from other academic writings. These skills that you will develop from writing a research paper will help you in achieving academic success.

Good reading skills

Writing a research paper will help you develop or improve your reading skills. It helps you in developing reading for critical evaluation not just for the purpose of knowledge. It helps you develop reasoning skills as you read any article or book to collect sources for your research paper. It helps you think differently and think out of the box when you read something. You develop the skill of making conclusion from what you read and ask question from yourself whether you agree with it or not.

In short the purpose of reading several sources here (for a research paper) is to understand, break into pints, evaluate and conclude it.

Good writing skills

Writing is essential to the completion of a research paper and hence it helps you develop good writing skills. Writing a research paper helps you understand the process of scientific discovery and then how to document that because without documentation it cannot reach other people.

A sense of achievement

Writing a research paper gives you a sense of achievement that you have done something all by yourself. Writing a good research paper will help you get prestige and good credentials among students and teachers. Some students find writing a research paper a way to achieve all of these things in the academic life.

Same skills for future scholarly researches

You learn the basic process of writing a thesis, dissertation or future scholarly essays. Writing a research report gives you a head start to future scholarly works. The student not only learns the process of research that is selecting a topic, reviewing the literature, collecting data and evaluation of data but it also helps you understand how to find answer of a question scientifically.

Knowledge about your subject area

You know about the topic that you have selected for your research paper and this improves your knowledge about that topic. It also gives you an idea how to explore different other topics that you are unable to understand from simple lectures from your teacher or text books. You learn how to build up your knowledge about any topic by exploring, synthesizing and evaluating it.

Learn how to use resources electronic and non electronic

You also learn how to use electronic and non electronic sources to do your research. There are various software that you can use in writing a research paper and you will learn how to use them. You will also learn how to use journals and books in the research paper writing. You will learn the process of citation and acknowledgment. You will be able to differentiate between the citation method that you are using and other citation methods.

Establish your individuality through writing

Writing a research paper all by yourself gives you a sense of individuality and satisfaction that you have created something. It also satisfies your curiosity and gives you pleasure to find answers to questions that you are curious about.

Exercise critical thinking

It also improves your critical thinking and makes you a better thinker. A s student write sources with references they have to think about who wrote it, where was it published and when did he/she write it? These questions help the student develop critical thinking and reading skills.

Learn about originality and creativity

You lean about the very important aspect of writing that is originality, you also improve your creativity in writing. Originality in writing is very important when you are writing a scientific research whether it is a research paper, thesis or dissertation. Acknowledging all the sources that you have used in your research is important part of research paper writing and it helps you avoid plagiarism.

The teacher should tell the students constantly the importance of originality and the ethical issues in copying others work without permission or proper citation.

The purpose of writing a research paper will only be fulfilled if the student learns all of some of the above mentioned skills. In case, a student copies texts from different sources and writes it in his/her research paper, the purpose of writing a research paper is lost. The student along with the teacher should make sure that every step of the research paper is written following the ethical and academic guidelines of writing a research paper.

Since writing this research paper will help you prepare for the next big writings in your academic career you should take it as something really important. Something that will help you learn reading, writing, synthesizing and critical evaluation skills.